I haven't heard anything bad about the company Mostly Weeds is referring to: Prairie Plant Systems...they are from my city. If you can't source the honeyberries locally, I would do the mail order if the shipping wasn't too dear.

If I had the option to grow sweet cherries, there is no way I'd grow sour ones. My Evans is prolific but I don't use the fruit for more than the odd pie in the summer. I made jam with it once and it wasn't a huge hit.

Mostly Weeds wrote:Are Sour Cherry different from Bush Cherry varieties? I think what I actually want is a Bush Cherry but I might have confused it with a prairie style Sour Cherry? I'm mixed up...

Nanking cherries grow on a bush, but the fruit is really small and you need two to set fruit.

Evans is a sour cherry and gets to be at least a ten foot tall tree. They are self pollinating. It can be a prolific producer but the fruit spoils easily so you need to process the cherries soon after picking. I think Carmine Jewel is a shorter variety (Carmine Passion is supposed to be even sweeter). From what I've read, these sour cherries can be quite sweet if picked very late in the season...from my experience, they lose some of their acidity, but their flavor is nothing like a sweet cherry from the store.

I ordered plants from Prairie Tech last year and again this year. Both times my plants arrived when they were supposed to, well packed and just starting to wake up. Most of the plants were a very good size! Very healthy and vigorous growers. I've got all the haskap varieties, several types of Saskatoon, pink currants, goji berry bushes and all the U of S cherries. Most of these spent the winter in pots in the backyard and survived just fine. The Romeo cherries were the only ones to fruit for me the year they arrived and again this year, loaded with blooms despite their young age and many of the haskaps bloomed. I've got fruit set on berry blue, 9-15 and 9-91. My borealis and tundra haskap just woke up after being shipped to me.

I highly recommend Prairie Tech. Good customer service, reasonable shipping and reasonable plant prices. You would pay up to $20 for a tiny haskap from Vesey's, better to deal direct with the growers than order through a nursery and pay 2-3 times to cost.

I'm looking forward to finding out what the haskap berries taste like! Some of the bushes are really loaded! I'm in Richmond Hill just north of Toronto.

Just got my 3rd Haskap; this one is Indigo Gem, from the same nursery I got Borealis, so, they're supposed to be a match for pollinating. The other one I got from Lowes is Opal, which one website lists as a good match for most varieties, and very hardy. It's twice the size of the other two, same money?

Strange how several different websites have to be visited to piece together the information on these three; they break them down to three groups, Russian, Japanese and University of Saskatchewan varieties, but they don't link up those varieties that are matches, or at least not my three varieties? Only 1 website stated the reason they are not good matches, is that they flower at different times.

Will keep studying the information, and maybe take some notes, instead of trying to commit too much information to memory.

Linda,You will have to keep us informed on the growth, bloom and fruit pattern of Opal.

Here, the Berry Blue seems to be the pollinator for Tundra and Borealis. Purchased 2 new varieties this year (Honeybee and Berry Smart) and Honeybee is touted as being a good pollinator for quite a few cultivars.

The most prolific I have found were the Indigo trio (Yum, Gem and Treat) and Berry Blue, but nowhere near the claims that most websites promise, although the berries seem a bit sweeter than the other cultivars.

Last year I gathered enough berries for eating fresh and canning, but this year, have only gotten about 1/2 litre in total from all the plants. Strange season already. Only 2 sweet cherries are blooming and 3 sour, and only about a quarter of the apples have budded or in bloom right now